Triunfo/Kanan Road intersection
On Monday, October 14th of 2014, there was a horrific accident at the intersection of Kanan Rd. and Triunfo Canyon Rd and we lost a longtime friend and skilled operator, Pete Young. Pete was trying to cross Kanan on his bike at night and never made it to the other side as he was struck by a vehicle traveling south.
This intersection has been the site of many accidents throughout the years, and the Triunfo-Lobo Board of Directors decided that we should finally force the County to do something about it. During our investigation into the matter, we discovered that the proper Caltrans minimum line of sight visibility for anyone making a left turn out of Triunfo is 605 feet for the speed that cars on Kanan are typically traveling.
You can see from this illustration that many more trees need to be removed in order to achieve 605' line of site
We sent several letters to the County requesting that they give us at least this Caltrans standard minimum visibility so that we do not experience any more tragedies. The County has moved very slow, and put us some delineators to better define the right turn lane entering into Kanan and did some minimum tree trimming in order to mitigate the problem. Unfortunately, what they did was highly inadequate. They did not achieve the minimum line of site, and the delineators have been taken out multiple times by vehicles thereby previewing what would happen to any car that would move out into the intersection like the County would like us to.
The ineffective delineators..
About 2 weeks ago, the County informed us that they are satisfied with what they have done so far and will be doing no more. Part of what factored into their decision is that 2 people who identified themselves as community residents, complained that the elected Board does not represent the views of the canyon, and that the canyon residents really did not want the trees removed to obtain the line of sight. For some reason that none of on the elected board can understand, the County listened to them.
This shows the view that should be clear from the intersection of Triunfo and Kanan.
So now, we are asking every member of the community to please write a letter to the County, expressing your concern for your family's safety and the safety of all visitors to the canyon. We will be e-mailing you all a sample letter, and also delivering a pre-addressed, stamped envelope to make this process as easy as possible. We encourage EVERYONE in the canyon to send in these letters so that that County will fully understand our residents' concern and dissatisfaction with the inadequate remedies that they have performed thus far.
CLICK HERE to download a PDF presentation that will tell you the whole story.
If you would like any further information about the letter or what has happened so far with this issue, please send an e-mail to board@triunfolobo.org